VentureBeat has estimated sales figures for the just-released Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft by way of investment bank Lazard Capital Markets, where they estimate the MMORPG expansion has sold between 600,000 and 700,000 copies at retail since launching this week. This estimate does not include digital sales, but they add that "Lazard analysts believe Pandaria's digital sales won't make up for its poor retail performance." Word is: "Historically, each new World of Warcraft expansion has outsold its predecessors, Lazard said, but sales of Pandaria are down 60 percent from the previous expansion pack, Cataclysm, which has sold 3.3 million units since its launch in December 2010."

Bubble has burst and people want something different. That being said, I purchased and am having fun playing my pandaren monk as a casual player but the majority of MMO players have moved onto GW2/real life and/or want something new.

It is still a good, quality expansion but is indeed more of the same. Nothing wrong with that if that's still your thing, but for many people, it just isn't enough anymore. Having come back to WoW from GW2, I immediately noticed the antiquated engine and game mechanics. Will still probably level to max, check out the new content, maybe raid once or twice then move onto something else

Alamar wrote on Sep 28, 2012, 14:11:I love that this thread is all about shitting on Blizzard and sheepishly agreeing with the sensationalist news, but when there's a story about how PC games sales are dying, and 99% of the thread is 'OMG, no they're not, digital!!!'...

Hypocrisy much : )

-Alamar

I love it when blizzard accounts are compromised, the problem is clearly on blizzards end, and they're fucking evil. Yet when GW2 accounts get compromised, people here can't say enough nice things about anet.

The compromised accounts for GW2 were because people used the same passwords on a guild wars fan site. It was pretty much isolated to that. If the accounts were caused by some negligence on the part of ncsoft or ArenaNet you can bet they would have gotten criticized.

I think its fair to compare Cataclysm sales versus Mists of Pandaria they are likely apples to apples comparisons (aka retail). It hints at a downward trend. It could also have been released at a odd time in the month for some people. I know quite a few large games have been released that are pulling attention away from World of Warcraft at the moment. It is possible to see a surge of players after people finish their run through of Guild Wars 2 or Borderlands2 or Torchlight 2 or what ever it is they are playing.

Deathbishop wrote on Sep 28, 2012, 17:32:The story has already been updated to reflect sales of 4.5 million if you account for digital sales. I wouldn't use the word 'disappointing'. Ask any other MMO developer (or any game for that matter) for 4.5 million sales, I think they'll take it.

That's an estimate of total third quarter sales by a different analyst. It is not actual sales, just his guess of how it will end up at the end of that quarter including both retail and digital.

Actual unit sales are important but I think it will be more interesting to see if this causes a surge in subscription numbers and if so, do those people stick around longer than a month.

The story has already been updated to reflect sales of 4.5 million if you account for digital sales. I wouldn't use the word 'disappointing'. Ask any other MMO developer (or any game for that matter) for 4.5 million sales, I think they'll take it.

nin wrote on Sep 28, 2012, 14:13:I love it when blizzard accounts are compromised, the problem is clearly on blizzards end, and they're fucking evil. Yet when GW2 accounts get compromised, people here can't say enough nice things about anet.

The average computer is a moron, everyone knows that. It doesn't matter if its Blizzard or ArenaNet who makes the game, people will get themselves hacked. The majority of hacking problems are related to personal computer or account weaknesses but Blizzard had a very public network intrusion where the complete account tables were copied so automatically blaming the users was really shitty.

I love that this thread is all about shitting on Blizzard and sheepishly agreeing with the sensationalist news, but when there's a story about how PC games sales are dying, and 99% of the thread is 'OMG, no they're not, digital!!!'...

The sales would likely be disappointing even with the digitals totaled in is the point, it's not to disparage Blizzard by misusing the sales figures. I'm sure many people bought the game digitally but I doubt this expansion sold as well as the previous one for many reasons.

MattyC wrote on Sep 28, 2012, 14:19:What is the point in counting sales but ignoring digital? Did they just do this so they could name drop Blizzard/WoW and get some page views? Other than people getting collector's edition copies why would anyone not get the digital download? I would imagine the vast majority of MoP sales were digital.

I think the main issue is that they don't have any digital numbers, but news about sales number of big games are a thing.

What is the point in counting sales but ignoring digital? Did they just do this so they could name drop Blizzard/WoW and get some page views? Other than people getting collector's edition copies why would anyone not get the digital download? I would imagine the vast majority of MoP sales were digital.

Alamar wrote on Sep 28, 2012, 14:11:I love that this thread is all about shitting on Blizzard and sheepishly agreeing with the sensationalist news, but when there's a story about how PC games sales are dying, and 99% of the thread is 'OMG, no they're not, digital!!!'...

Hypocrisy much : )

-Alamar

I love it when blizzard accounts are compromised, the problem is clearly on blizzards end, and they're fucking evil. Yet when GW2 accounts get compromised, people here can't say enough nice things about anet.

I love that this thread is all about shitting on Blizzard and sheepishly agreeing with the sensationalist news, but when there's a story about how PC games sales are dying, and 99% of the thread is 'OMG, no they're not, digital!!!'...

What I find interesting in all of this, is that I cant, for the love of god, find any sale numbers of Cataclysm for the first year or since release. The highest I can find is 4.7 million after 1 month, which is kinda low for a 10 million subscriber game that more or less forces you to use the newest expansion.

Oh that is so lame... You will PAY for your use of inappropriate dialogue!- Mojo Jojo

These sales figures are only unimpressive if you view them through the lens of a stock market analyst who deems anything other than endless growth to be underwhelming. I don't think anyone else is surprised that WoW isn't pulling the numbers it did 5+ years ago, least of all Blizzard. It's pretty obvious that they scaled things back in MoP in preparation for the decrease in demand.

Verno wrote on Sep 28, 2012, 08:46:Let's be honest, the B team is working on this. I still see almost weekly hotfixes. The A team already moved onto Titan, although it will be interesting to see if that ever makes it to market as the climate for subscription MMOs seems to have drastically shifted. They put this out because they thought they could make a quick buck and to get some younger players into the game. The trouble is that the younger players are probably dicking around with a Nintendo 3DS or cellphone games.

Quite true. It was stated over a year ago that the best of the WoW team had already moved on to Titan. They plan for it to "eclipse" WoW and last "10, 15, 20 years going forward," so I'm confident that's where they're placing their bets. An investment of that caliber in this day in age implies a lot of thought about a pricing model.

You will see a GW2-like MMO, just with an extreme edition of social features, everything "bigger," they're definitely pulling an Apple move combined with an Avatar move. The question is whether or not they intend to go subscription, and I apply this same question to The Elder Scrolls Online, which will be in the same boat. It may have taken WoW to really make the MMO genre explode; maybe it will take Titan to put the death knell in subscription-based.

You point out the younger player base, and casual player base, which is why I wink when I mention Titan won't technically be platform-specific. So anticipate a hybrid pay model, although I still question (in terms of analysis) whether it will be viable by the time it is released, given GW2's success with a more sensible model. Micro-transactions are virtually guaranteed, I think it's more an expectation of their approach to each platform.

Who actually gets up, drives to the store and gets a box when you already preloaded it and are playing in minutes. Don't get me wrong, people do but I think this article should be removed and written when they get ALL the numbers. They are saying it is down 60% without counting digital sales. Duh.

"This estimate does not include digital sales, but they add that "Lazard analysts believe Pandaria's digital sales won't make up for its poor retail performance"

I don't know, maybe it's just the market is tired of this rote formula or perhaps tired of subscription MMOs. Guild Wars 2 pushed what, 2.2mil copies in a week or two? I think there is definitely a market there. I just don't think that they really appealed to their fans with this. As soon as I heard it was an expansion involving the Pandaren I wrote it off. They could have put in flying mount combat with a dance studio and revived Arthas (again) but I had already dismissed it.

Let's be honest, the B team is working on this. I still see almost weekly hotfixes. The A team already moved onto Titan, although it will be interesting to see if that ever makes it to market as the climate for subscription MMOs seems to have drastically shifted. They put this out because they thought they could make a quick buck and to get some younger players into the game. The trouble is that the younger players are probably dicking around with a Nintendo 3DS or cellphone games.